3 Ways to Attract New Blog Readers

3 Ways to Attract
New Blog Readers
through Hosting


Part 3 of the series
How to Attract Readers to Your Blog

What You Will Learn

You spent days (or weeks! Months!) setting up your blog, perfecting your design, and writing quality content…but you have no readers! Before you can even begin to worry about developing a following, you first need to let the world know your blog exists. But how do you get your name out there?

I've been asked by a number of people how I network my blog to attract readers. To answer that question, I’ve written a series of Blogging Tips and Tricks posts. In each post in the series I will outline a few methods for attracting new readers to your blog. I am NOT an expert and these tips are based on my own observations and experiences.

Previous posts in the series:

• 4 Ways to Gain Readers Using Comments
  How to Increase Blog Readership with Search Engines

Let's Do This!

Method 1: Host a Giveaway

One of the fastest ways to get people to look at your blog is to offer them a chance to get something for free. Giveaways are great for exposure.

You have a couple of choices when you do this. You can:

• Make following a requirement
• Not make following a requirement
• Require/give extra entries for spreading the word

Obviously having following as a requirement will make your follower numbers skyrocket. All I have to do is follow you with no intention of ever reading your blog and I could win something? Score! Lots of people will follow you (though probably not me. I feel like I'm lying if I do that).

The downside? Many of these people are not "true" followers in the sense that they'll keep coming back.

Personally, I'm a statistics junky, so I don't like muddying my follower stats with these types of followers (they're also the most likely to un-follow you, which always makes me sad).

Also, not everyone who reads your blog is going to be a blogger, so making following a requirement may alienate your most devoted readers! I started reading blogs long before I had an account with Blogger and I'm not the type of person to subscribe through email, but that didn't make me any less of a follower.

Because of all of this, I will never ask you to follow my blog in order to enter a giveaway. BUT, my follower numbers are also a lot lower as a result.

So there are pros and cons. This is a personal choice and only you can determine what is right for you and your blog.

Giving extra entries is a great way to help spread the word about your blog. Basically, you're getting the people who enter your giveaway to do a little leg work for you and, as a result, your blog will be exposed to lots of untapped readers.

The only reason I don't normally do this is because I'm too lazy to add up extra entries (it was CRAZY the one time I did this, though I did have "unconventional" extra entries). But, there again, my blog's exposure is probably taking a hit.

I hear Rafflecopter is great if you want to use extra entries (I will probably never use Rafflecopter because I don't like it. But that's a whole 'nother conversation).

Making extra entries a requirement may turn some people off, too (not everyone uses Twitter and Facebook! Like, um, me...).

How to spread the word about your giveaway:

• Join a giveaway hop
• Sign up your giveaways with Candace's Saturday Situation
• Send invitations through Goodreads (but not too many, please!)
• Announce it on your blog sidebars 
• Announce it on the bottom of your blog posts (for those who read your blog in a feed reader)
• Announce it on Facebook/Twitter
• Make a button for people to grab
• Require/offer extra entries for spreading the word
• I'm sure there are other ways, what do you suggest?

Method 2: Host an Event

Hosting an event is a great way to expose yourself to new readers. Just look at Busting the Newbie Blues for an example! I also recently co-hosted the Historical Fantasy Jubilee.

I saw an increase in followers as a result of both events, but even more importantly those events have been great networking opportunities. Almost every blog that signed up for Busting the Newbie Blues last year are blogs I still read now, and I've found many more to add to my feed reader this year.

What did I do to spread the word about Busting the Newbie Blues?

• I emailed bloggers who I thought might be interested and asked if they would join
• I made a button for people to add to their blogs
• My event includes interaction where bloggers make a post on their own blogs

What did we do to spread the word about the Historical Fantasy Jubilee?

• Ruby and I sent out email invitations to select bloggers and encouraged them to invite their friends
• Ruby and I made event and game buttons for people to add to their blogs
• Ruby tweeted links to our event
• Some of our giveaways offered extra entries for tweeting
• We added our giveaways to linkups like Candace's Saturday Situation (and others)
• The authors who participated in the event spread the word through their own social networks

What you should keep in mind:

• Hosting an event takes A LOT of time and effort, so plan your time accordingly
• The more involved you are, the more involved others will be

Method 3: Host a Challenge

Hosting a challenge is not something I have done yet, but I imagine it would be a good way to attract readers to your blog. Not only that, but it is a great way to get readers to keep coming back to your blog.

Why it brings in readers:

• They're first introduced to your blog when they sign up
• They keep coming back to your blog to report their progress
• They'll talk about your challenge on their own blogs

What you can do to spread the word:

• Make a button (challenge participants love buttons!)
• Send out an invitation on Goodreads
• Advertise your challenge on your own blog (so people passing through will stay)
• Use Facebook or Twitter
• Send email invitations to people you think might be interested (but don't be spammy!)

What you should keep in mind:

• Hosting a challenge takes a lot of time and effort
• The more involved you are, the more involved others will be
• Make the rules clear
• Don't change the rules partway through! 
• Be on top of things--if you have a linky list each month, make sure you put it up at the beginning of every month
• From the beginning, clearly state what participants need to do when they finish the challenge
• Check out The Story Siren's Debut Author Challenge or Stalking the Bookshelves and I Eat Words' YA Series Challenge for examples of well-run challenges

What do you think are good things to host?
Have you hosted any of these?
Do you have any advice about what to do or not do when acting as a host?

Click here to make a request for a future Tips & Tricks post.
The form is anonymous, so please don't feel shy at all! 

I'm certainly not an expert, but I'll try my hardest to explain what I do know and research what I don't know. Please keep in mind this feature will only appear once a month, so it may take some time for me to get to your question--but I promise you I will!

Click here to read previous Tips & Tricks Posts

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How to Increase Blog Readership with Search Engines

How to Increase Blog Readership with Search Engines

Part 2 of the series 
How to Attract Readers to Your Blog

What You Will Learn

You spent days (or weeks! Months!) setting up your blog, perfecting your design, and writing quality content…but you have no readers! Before you can even begin to worry about developing a following, you first need to let the world know your blog exists. But how do you get your name out there?

I've been asked by a number of people how I network my blog to attract readers. To answer that question, I’ve written a series of Blogging Tips and Tricks posts. In each post in the series I will outline a few methods for attracting new readers to your blog.

Previous posts in the series: 

4 Ways to Gain Readers Using Comments 

Let's Do This!

Method 2: Make Your Blog Visible to Random Searches

Register your blog with popular search engines:

• Google
• Bing

Those links lead to the pages where you can submit your blog's URL. Odds are you've already been picked up by them, but just in case you haven't you should go ahead and register your blog with those search engines.

I get a significant percentage of pageviews from random searches.

Increase your SEO

Registering your site isn't enough. Your blog might show up in search results, but odds are you'll be buried on page 20+ and no one will see it. To bump your blog up higher in the search results, you need to utilize SEO (search engine optimization). 

Check out these posts to learn how to take advantage of SEO:

• How to Increase SEO with Post Titles
• How to Make Anchor Text
• How to Maximize Links 

Register your blog with popular blog directories:

• Book Blog Directory 
  
• Book Blogger Directory
• Blogaholic Social Network 
• Fyrefly's Book Blog
• YA Book Blog Directory

These are the directories I am registered with, though there certainly are more out there. Feel free to link more directories in the comments and I'll update this list to include them.

I get a moderate amount of pageviews from these sources.

Stay tuned for the next post in this series where I’ll go over a few more tips on how you can attract readers to your blog!

Click here to make a request for a future How To post.

The form is anonymous, so please don't feel shy at all! 

These tips and tricks posts are a bi-monthly feature, so it may take a little time to answer your question, but I WILL answer it!

I'm certainly not an expert, but I'll try my hardest to explain what I do know and research what I don't know.

Click here to read previous How To Posts 

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4 Ways to Gain Readers Using Comments: Part 1 of How to Attract Readers to Your Blog

4 Ways to Gain Readers Using Comments


Part 1 of the series 
How to Attract Readers to Your Blog

What You Will Learn

You spent days (or weeks! Months!) setting up your blog, perfecting your design, and writing quality content…but you have no readers! Before you can even begin to worry about developing a following, you first need to let the world know your blog exists. But how do you get your name out there?

I've been asked by a number of people how I network my blog to attract readers. To answer that question, I’ve written a series of Blogging Tips and Tricks posts. In each post in the series I will outline a few methods for attracting new readers to your blog.

Let's Do This!

Method 1: Comment on similar blogs

Meaningful Comments

Why it works:

• Instant audience: Commenting on similar blogs gets your name out there and in a venue where readers already like the subject you’re blogging about
• Instant advertising: Every comment you leave includes a link to your blog, your name, and your picture
• Instant attraction: You can show off your winning personality through quality comments
• Instant recognition: The more people see you, the more they remember you

Meaningful comments can serve as extremely effective advertising. I first found Nic from Irresistible Reads through her prolific and awesome comments on other people’s blogs. She was everywhere! I thought she sounded like a really nice person and so I clicked on one of her comments to check out her blog (which very quickly became one of my “Read every day” blogs).

Make your links hot

Why it works:

• You're making it easy for people to find your blog
• In a list of comments, your direct link is more likely to be clicked on

I’m pretty busy, so the easier bloggers make it for me to visit their blog, the more likely I am to visit them. Sure your name is a link to your blog, but that’s a two step process that, when multiplied by about 20 different commenters, it takes a lot of time. Make things easier by making your links hot, especially on meme/hopping days.

Copy and paste this code to make your links hot:

    <a href="http://smallreview.blogspot.com/">Small Review</a>

Replace my URL with the URL you want the link to lead to (probably your blog). Replace the name of my blog with the name of your own blog, or whatever words you want to use as your anchor text.

Possible Cons:

• Some people think this is spammy

As long as you're posting a quality comment, I don't consider it spammy to include your link. So when you're here at Small Review, feel free to "sign" your comments with a link to your blog.

Tie your commenting name to your blog

Commenting is about making friends, but it’s also about advertising your blog. If you want your comments to serve this double duty, then make sure your commenting name ties back to your blog in some way.

In a world of Jane Does, don't be another Jane:

If your commenting name is only your first name, then that can be very confusing. I can think of three bloggers who all have the same name (and I’m sure there are more), and their commenting name is not tied to their blog name. As a result, when I see their comments I only know which blogger they are by looking at their avatar, and not every blog shows avatars.

How to do it right:

Alex from A Girl, Books, and Other Things has her commenting name set up optimally. When she leaves a comment, her user name is displayed like this:

Alex (A Girl, Books, OtherThings)

This is perfect because I know her name, but I’m also reminded every time she comments of the name of her blog. This combination of her name and her blog helps solidify the association between her (her personality shining through her comments) and her blog name. If I didn’t know her and I started seeing her comments crop up on a bunch of the same blogs I read, then this association between her name and her blog really helps me remember who she is and lets her blog stand out in my mind.

Identity Theft!!

If another Alex pops up in the blogging world, I won’t mix up their comments with Alex from A Girl, Books, and Other Things. It may seem at first like having a bunch of different Alex-authored comments all over might actually help her by spreading her name around, but what if the new Alex is a spammer or otherwise irritating? You certainly don’t want your good name mixed up with a spammer!

Tie your commenting picture to your blog

The avatar that appears next to your comments is another way for you to remind people of your blog. For me, I use the same picture that’s in my header and my button. Repetition is the key. The more people see your images and name around, the more likely to are to remember you.

Of course if you’ve been commenting with a particular image for years then you may not want to change it up. It all depends, but what's most important to remember here is consistency. Pick a picture and stick with it. Frequently changing your avatar picture leads to confusion and you won't capitalize on the "I see X everywhere and so I remember it" phenomenon.

Stay tuned for the next post in this series where I’ll go over a few more tips on how you can attract readers to your blog!

Click here to make a request for a future How To post.

The form is anonymous, so please don't feel shy at all!

I'm certainly not an expert, but I'll try my hardest to explain what I do know and research what I don't know.

Click here to read previous How To Posts 

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